So it`s finally summer vacation here! Sadly, Japanese schools don`t work the same way as home and everyone still comes into work everyday. Currently it`s the 3rd week into break and even with an extensive list of projects to keep myself busy I`m finding that I`m either a) too freaking lazy to do them, or b) doing them and still incredibly bored. Don`t really understand myself how I can be bored while keeping busy, but it`s definitely something I`ve come to know quite well during the last year. A little stimulation please! Too much routine is driving me crazyyyy! So far this is a break down of my summer days--> Slide into the staff room by 8:15 and check out emails and online news, slowly prepare regional information for the new JETs, wander around and talk to students during club activities (which can take up to an hour at times), study kanji and other Japanese stuff, study Korean, and now then I`ll dabble with French. Random short-lived conversations with co-workers, running from bees that fly into the staff room until someone saves me, planning weekend activities and future prospective trips, 10 minute naps at my desk, and sometimes help tutor the basketball team in English, and leave at 3:30 on the dot. So as you can see there`s no end of things to do...but the days still seem to stretch on. Originally I planned on joining in some club activities every other day, but during basketball practice over a week ago I had a bit of a mishap (which was really no surprise) and will now be hobbling around for the next few weeks. The saddest part was that the girls were really excited that I was there and wanted me to come again :( Clumsiness strikes again. dun dun DUNNNNN
On a much brighter note, it`s now officially my second year here on JET! Sadae-san, an older lady who is interested in English, invited me out for dinner last week to celebrate this. A lot of people around town have been asking me if I`m going anywhere or leaving Japan, and seem happy to hear that I`m staying for another year. I myself am feeling kind of ambivalent on the matter, and would like to blame it on having to work everyday.Yes, yes I shall.
Just realized I haven`t updated since April. Hahaha..ha...oops.
Quick update time...cue music~
May consisted of Golden Week, my birthday, and finishing up Musical performances. The first week of May here has three consecutive days off in a row, so I took two extra vacation days and headed 5 hours south to Kanazawa to visit old friends and host families from my high school exchange. As usual it was great to see everyone and was strange to see how much my younger host brothers and sisters have grown. My youngest host sister is looking into universities and has even done a year abroad herself in Australia. It really just throws me on how much time has passed since I was living there. Anyways, there was also a huge classical music festival taking place throughout the city, and was invited to three shows by one of my host fathers. I miss Kanazawa :( Many of the people I know there suggested I look into working there after JET, and I`m seriously tempted to. My birthday was a great time! Some younger teachers/neighbours invited me over to have an okonomiyaki party, which was followed by the best chocolate mousse cake ever! My neighbour likes to cook, so I let her know that if she ever feels the need to whip up a huge sprawl to just let me know. So that was lunch time, and the evening was spent in Niigata City with other lovely ALTs at an all you can eat okonomiyaki restaurant. A lovely carb-filled day. And after that we headed to Round 1, an indoor activity place with mini-bike racing (I won our round! woo!), a plethora of sports, and arcade games. I also somehow broke my baby toe by banging it on the corner of some door. At the time it seemed better to play tennis barefooted...? But in all seriousness, is there really a reason to question yet another injury? Not so much...
June. Ohh June.. Any dreams I`ve had of becoming a rice planter were all over in the fraction of a second one Sunday morning. After really enjoying the harvesting part of the process last fall, Bryan, Nicole and I (plus Aimee) decided to come full circle in our harvesting experience. We even bought the triangular shaped hats to wear like the old people do, and rubber boots or socks to muck around the muddy water in. One look at that field though and it was game over for me. Thousands of tadpoles, water spiders, leeches, and one particularly disgusting bug that made me want to throw up, even now just thinking about it, ended my journey right there. I slopped into the paddy a foot or so in borrowed rubber boots, to plant maybe 10 baby rice roots, and then got my ass out of there. I ended up throwing the rice roots to everyone else for the rest of the morning. Bryan bravely went in barefooted and had no problems, and even Nicole was in and out, but I was more than happy to stand on the edge taking pictures and, more importantly, staying away from the things living in the water. I`ve decided that I`ll redeem myself with harvesting again this fall. A lot drier and barely any bugs. Cool beans.
June 16th~20th was spent with the lovely Nicole in Seoul, South Korea. We were both really interested in going to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between the north and south, as well as just checking out the country in general. I`ve been told that Korea is a `less cool version of Japan`, but I have to disagree. (I actaully enjoyed it a lot more in some ways, though that could have been because we spent the majority of our time in Seoul.) We were able to do lots of shopping at the markets and in the trendy downtown area. It was extremely hot and sunny our entire trip, which was nice but made walking around harder. We checked out the Namsan tower the first night we were there and enjoyed the cable car journeys up and down the mountain. One day I was even able to meet up with my friend, Mana, who was studying in Korea. So she showed us the Palace, a history museum, and then grabbed some food. I was surprised how much my Japanese came in handy when we were out shopping and such. If English wasn`t understood Japanese usually was, and we were even treated a little better by some shop keepers when speaking it! The DMZ tour was intense. Everyone had to dress conservatively (in 38 degree heat =/ ) and were given specific instructions for when were were in the DMZ area. Our tour bus was stopped at two checkpoints to check our passports, and then we changed to a military bus that took us right up to where the south and north have their talks. We were able to spend 2-3 minutes inside one of these little buildings, and got some photos with South Korean guards on the North Korean side of the building. So would this mean that we were `technically` in North Korea for a fraction of a minute??haha Then we were herded back out to take some photos. While this was going on, the North side was keeping tabs on us, and one of the women from our group started pointing at one of the guards, which just so happened to be one of the things we were warned against doing. From their perspective we could be holding a gun, so all of us near her were like `What the heck are you doing lady?!` All in all it was an interesting experience. Our hostel turned out to be more of a guesthouse and super laid back, but a little dirty and loud. Our room was located right beside the main living area where everyone hung out and drank every night, so it was hard to sleep, but overall I didn`t have any problems with the people themselves. Though it`ll come as no surprise, the food was probably one of my favourite parts of the trip. Bakeries with whole wheat bread, bibimbap, bbq meat restaurants, kimchi, and a fun yogurt place, just to name a few. :) I would go back for the food..and the men weren`t hard on the eyes either. Nicole and I found ourselves questionning why we were living in Japan. I am a full supporter of the 2 year mandatory military service hahaha!
July was super busy! Took the proficiency test at the first of the month ( don`t think it went so well =/ not a fan of the new system), had one of the best Canada Day`s ever with sushi followed by a bonfire on the beach! a Yosakoi performance, musical script writing party, RA Meeting and Harry Potter, flute concert with Sadae-san (her cousin was the flutist), and lots of end of semester/ good-bye parties. When all was said and done, I ended up going to 5 parties in one week. From our area 3 JETs left, Nicole being one of them. She`s gone to work at an Alberta International School in Macao (near Hong Kong) for the next few years, but we have plans to meet up for Christmas and to go visit her next Golden Week :) She will be missed, but we also have 5 new JETs in our area this year; 2 Canadian, 1 American, 1 from the UK, and 1 from Jamaica. It`s nice to have a bit more diversity among our ALTs cause last year was just American and Canadian.
The weekends this month are shaping up pretty well. Went to my first soccer game Saturday night with Katrina and a new JET. Niigata has its own team, The Niigata Albirex, who are rumoured to not win a lot, but we kicked some butt there that day 4-0! Definitely a great first game. Also went to Marinpia, Niigata`s Aquarium, with Katrina and thoroughly enjoyed the dolphin show. I want to be one in my next life hahaha (I`m serious though). Sunday was spent showing Adele and Jhana around the Niigata Station area, and then we met up with some other JETs for a fireworks extravaganza. Two hours of almost non-stop fireworks. Some of them were really nice, but all of them were more or less set off at once and just became a huge mess in the sky. This upcoming Friday is the new JET Orientation where I have to do a presentation on Lesson Planning and Time Management, so we`ll see how it goes. Next Friday is a Beer Garden on top of some fancy hotel; Saturday is a KPop concert (EEEK!!!), and the last weekend is musical auditions/ home stay information session.
Never a dull moment. Well, the weekends aren`t anyways. haha
Monday, August 8, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Earthquakes and Sakura
So unless anyone has been living under a rock for the past month or so, Japan was hit with (one of) the worst earthquakes in history on March 11th. It was a normal school day for me, made better by the fact that it was Friday and some other ALT friends and I had planned a Mexican food party for that evening. There I was at 2:50 pm, sitting in the teachers room gmail chatting my little heart away, when the entire room started shaking. For the record, shaking is NOT cool. Luckily, the earthquake in my area was ranked at only a 5, so everything stayed intact and in their respectable places. But holy frig, it just kept going on and on and on! In total the earthquake lasted 3 minutes. I remember speaking with the teacher beside me while it was happening:
Me: Umm... are earthquakes supposed to last this long?
Teacher: No, this is really weird.
Me: (Starting to panic) Ya...weird.... (holding back tears and a breakdown)
I`m very grateful that I was still at work with people who are used to earthquakes and knew what to do in that kind of situation. And I`m somewhat proud to say that in the almost three years of having lived in Japan, that was my first real earthquake, but definitely not my last. After an emergency meeting with the entire school in the gym, it was decided that the after school clubs should be canceled and everyone sent home. All of the teachers crowded around the TV in the teachers room and waited for news from the rest of the country. The span of the earthquake was unbelievable, and we all watched horrified as coverage of the tsunami played in front of us. Which leads me to the next thing to be grateful about: living on the Japan Sea side and not the Pacific. We thankfully had no tsunami here.
Confused as to whether I should stay home or not, me and my ALT friends decided to go through the with Mexican food party..mainly because none of us wanted to be left alone. Aaron, Nicole, and Bryan had all invited various staff members to join in our little get together, but for obviously reasons many of them canceled. In the end about 10 people came, which turned out to the perfect number for Aaron`s apartment to hold. That night I stayed at Nicole`s but neither of us got much sleep due to the every-two-minute aftershocks, and the screaming warnings from our cell phones. We finally just turned them off at 4 am and decided that if another significant quake was going to happen, well, it`ll just wake us up now won`t it. The next morning brought a phone call from the police and my BOE supervisor, wanting to make sure that I was okay, and if I could please move my car. Nicole`s apartment parking is pretty much non-existant, and though I hadn`t had any problems with parking there in the past, the recent events were making the police much more active.
We were also supposed to be going to Niigata City that day for the first performance of the charity musical `Shamisen Hero`, but it was canceled. Actually, a lot of things were canceled within the next few weeks, including most, if not all, of my evening activities. With nothing to do in the evening, and encouraged to save electricity, most of my evenings were spent watching TV in the dark under my kotatsu. After that first week of intermittent aftershocks, the earth seemed to have calmed down; that is, until about two weeks ago when I was shook awake by 4.0 quake, centered yet again in the Fukushima/Miyagi part of the country. I`m actually very worried about another bad quake happening again because I don`t think that the nuclear reactors would be able to handle another tsunami. For now the situation seems to be somewhat under control, but I`m continuing to monitor the news. If it gets REALLY bad, then I`ll think about going someplace else, but for now I`m staying put.
Apart from that, the new school year started up again on April 7th with an entrance ceremony for the new 7th graders. I still can`t get over just how strict ceremonies are taken here. The graduation ceremony in March for example, the entire school spent two or three days practicing down to the minute how everything was supposed to run. Of course this meant a well executed ceremony, but I don`t know, it kind of takes the fun out of things. I guess it`s just my cultural background talking. But I would have thought that smiling at least would have been allowed at a graduation ceremony. Some of the kids were trying really hard not to smile, and ended up twisting their faces into a kind of painful smirk. Anyways, I`m just SUPER happy that classes have started up again. I had taken the last week of March off to laze around and do nothing, because I thought that if I had to be sitting around and be bored, then doing it in the comfort of my own home was the best option. Boy I was happy I did too! The first week of April, even though the students were there and classes had technically started, I still didn`t have anything to do, meaning really long days.
Last weekend the musical was held in Itoigawa, which just so happens to be in the southern part of Niigata...and I live in the most northern part. So, surprise! The drive took almost 4 hours one way for me..and that`s with speeding pretty much the entire way there and back...and minus the 45 minute wild goose chase I had set us on by going the wrong way at the Nagaoka Junction (oops :/ ), but it did mean that I was relieved of any directional supervision :P We were originally supposed to go to Hanami (Cherry Blossom viewing) with a bunch of other JETs at Takada Park (voted the 3rd best night-viewing spot for hanami in all of Japan!), but it was raining so we gave up on that idea. The rain did stop in the evening, so we went back then and I`m glad we did. Most of the sakura (cherry blossoms) were in bloom, and there were lines and lines of food stalls, which are probably my favourite part of Japanese festivals. And by probably, I mean that they are.
(The lights reflecting the sakura on the castle moat. So pretty!)
(Me and my boys, Bryan and Thom :) )
(This was taken from on top of a nearby hill, overlooking the festivities)
After performing for a quaint crowd of 10 people, team Murakami booted it for the highway and home. We left at 7:45 pm and made pretty good time, arriving in Murakami at around 10:45. Since it was Sunday the roads were pretty bare, so I made it home by 11:30. As tired as I was, I had a restless few nights after due to my most `favourite` rodent in the world, the mouse. As some of you know, I had a problem with mice in my res room last year in university, and at home too. I hate them. They totally disgust me. So far they haven`t made an appearance inside my house yet, but I can hear them running around the roof area and in the walls squeaking away and probably planning a full take over. Demise- a- la mouse. FML!!
Me: Umm... are earthquakes supposed to last this long?
Teacher: No, this is really weird.
Me: (Starting to panic) Ya...weird.... (holding back tears and a breakdown)
I`m very grateful that I was still at work with people who are used to earthquakes and knew what to do in that kind of situation. And I`m somewhat proud to say that in the almost three years of having lived in Japan, that was my first real earthquake, but definitely not my last. After an emergency meeting with the entire school in the gym, it was decided that the after school clubs should be canceled and everyone sent home. All of the teachers crowded around the TV in the teachers room and waited for news from the rest of the country. The span of the earthquake was unbelievable, and we all watched horrified as coverage of the tsunami played in front of us. Which leads me to the next thing to be grateful about: living on the Japan Sea side and not the Pacific. We thankfully had no tsunami here.
Confused as to whether I should stay home or not, me and my ALT friends decided to go through the with Mexican food party..mainly because none of us wanted to be left alone. Aaron, Nicole, and Bryan had all invited various staff members to join in our little get together, but for obviously reasons many of them canceled. In the end about 10 people came, which turned out to the perfect number for Aaron`s apartment to hold. That night I stayed at Nicole`s but neither of us got much sleep due to the every-two-minute aftershocks, and the screaming warnings from our cell phones. We finally just turned them off at 4 am and decided that if another significant quake was going to happen, well, it`ll just wake us up now won`t it. The next morning brought a phone call from the police and my BOE supervisor, wanting to make sure that I was okay, and if I could please move my car. Nicole`s apartment parking is pretty much non-existant, and though I hadn`t had any problems with parking there in the past, the recent events were making the police much more active.
We were also supposed to be going to Niigata City that day for the first performance of the charity musical `Shamisen Hero`, but it was canceled. Actually, a lot of things were canceled within the next few weeks, including most, if not all, of my evening activities. With nothing to do in the evening, and encouraged to save electricity, most of my evenings were spent watching TV in the dark under my kotatsu. After that first week of intermittent aftershocks, the earth seemed to have calmed down; that is, until about two weeks ago when I was shook awake by 4.0 quake, centered yet again in the Fukushima/Miyagi part of the country. I`m actually very worried about another bad quake happening again because I don`t think that the nuclear reactors would be able to handle another tsunami. For now the situation seems to be somewhat under control, but I`m continuing to monitor the news. If it gets REALLY bad, then I`ll think about going someplace else, but for now I`m staying put.
Apart from that, the new school year started up again on April 7th with an entrance ceremony for the new 7th graders. I still can`t get over just how strict ceremonies are taken here. The graduation ceremony in March for example, the entire school spent two or three days practicing down to the minute how everything was supposed to run. Of course this meant a well executed ceremony, but I don`t know, it kind of takes the fun out of things. I guess it`s just my cultural background talking. But I would have thought that smiling at least would have been allowed at a graduation ceremony. Some of the kids were trying really hard not to smile, and ended up twisting their faces into a kind of painful smirk. Anyways, I`m just SUPER happy that classes have started up again. I had taken the last week of March off to laze around and do nothing, because I thought that if I had to be sitting around and be bored, then doing it in the comfort of my own home was the best option. Boy I was happy I did too! The first week of April, even though the students were there and classes had technically started, I still didn`t have anything to do, meaning really long days.
Last weekend the musical was held in Itoigawa, which just so happens to be in the southern part of Niigata...and I live in the most northern part. So, surprise! The drive took almost 4 hours one way for me..and that`s with speeding pretty much the entire way there and back...and minus the 45 minute wild goose chase I had set us on by going the wrong way at the Nagaoka Junction (oops :/ ), but it did mean that I was relieved of any directional supervision :P We were originally supposed to go to Hanami (Cherry Blossom viewing) with a bunch of other JETs at Takada Park (voted the 3rd best night-viewing spot for hanami in all of Japan!), but it was raining so we gave up on that idea. The rain did stop in the evening, so we went back then and I`m glad we did. Most of the sakura (cherry blossoms) were in bloom, and there were lines and lines of food stalls, which are probably my favourite part of Japanese festivals. And by probably, I mean that they are.
After performing for a quaint crowd of 10 people, team Murakami booted it for the highway and home. We left at 7:45 pm and made pretty good time, arriving in Murakami at around 10:45. Since it was Sunday the roads were pretty bare, so I made it home by 11:30. As tired as I was, I had a restless few nights after due to my most `favourite` rodent in the world, the mouse. As some of you know, I had a problem with mice in my res room last year in university, and at home too. I hate them. They totally disgust me. So far they haven`t made an appearance inside my house yet, but I can hear them running around the roof area and in the walls squeaking away and probably planning a full take over. Demise- a- la mouse. FML!!
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Snowboarding Misadventure
So this should really be a post about the amazing Christmas I spent in Thailand, or the wicked New Years in Tokyo, but I`m going to catch up on the present first and work back from there. Just thinking about all of the places I went and the things I saw over those two weeks isn`t exactly encouraging me to take the 10 hours it`ll probably take me to write about it, but I promise I`ll get to it...eventually.
And it`s official. I passed in my contract for another year here in the Niigata countryside a few hours ago. I was expecting to feel a heavy weight in the pit of my stomach, but thankfully all I felt was hunger and a lightness of knowing that yes, I do have a job for at least another year. I think this calls for a celebration, once this stupid ailment that has a good grip on me ever decides to screw off. I`ve been warned that most ALTs get sick in February, but mine has been ongoing since getting back from Christmas break, so anytime now, right?! haha
As usual my weekends have been spent doing musical rehearsal all over the prefecture. It`s really coming together now, which is great since our first performance is about a month away! Due to some scheduling conflicts and some of the other musical members` families coming to visit them (where are MY visits by the way?!?! I hope you`re detecting the bitterness. You know who you are!), the performances have been pushed back into May. Not exactly what I expected when I first got into this thing, but I`ve accepted it now. Plus, we`ve got some pretty great people in our group, so it`s just a nice excuse to see them for an extra two months longer than originally planned :) I would have to say that the part I`m doing, one of the near-blind Moon Police, that`s right, I get to play a ghetto police officer from the moon (you know you`re jealous) in which we break out into Thriller followed by an amazing J-Pop dance combo, is a pretty sweet part. Mostly me, Bryan and Nicole, the other two ALTs from Murakami, get to bumble around onstage the entire time. Should be a piece of cake! I call this everyday life. Really hope that it all comes together and can`t wait to get it started!
(Warning: All criticism in the following paragraphs shouldn`t be taken to heart; it`s just how I really felt at the time)
In an effort to add yet another sport? skill? activity? to my already full calendar, I allowed Bryan to talk me into trying snowboarding last weekend. Not that he really had to try too hard, I`ve been wanting to try it for a long time now, it was just the poor geography of Eastern Canada keeping me from actually doing it. So bright and early last Saturday morning we cruised down to Wakabuna Ski Resort, which is only a 30 minute drive south of Murakami city. I rented some gear and got to learning the basics.
Why oh why was I not blessed with any sort of grace or heaven forbid, balance?! After being hauled up to standing for the first half an hour and then left to my own devices while Bryan and Nicole took off up the lift ( no way in hell I was going up so soon!), one of Aaron`s Japanese friends took pity on me and tried to teach the poor stupid foreign girl how to stand on the board. Now, I try to take criticism constructively, I really do, but when I`m just learning something for the first time and obviously frustrated just back the hell off. I`m not exaggerating or being humble when I say that I`m really just not good at sports in general. This man didn`t understand this, and continued to `instruct` me for the next hour or so (`bend your knee, bend your knee`)..until I had successfully gotten down the mountain with all appendages intact and ran into Nicole, with whom I stuck like glue to for the rest of the day. I`m sorry that my long legs don`t bend as well as your short ones old Japanese man, and I`m sorry that no matter how many times I told you this fact (in Japanese) that you just didn`t get why I wasn`t already a snowboarding queen under your tutelage. After that I more or less had a great day. I fell fewer and fewer times (minus the time we decided to try the `other` trail...which wasn`t the best idea we had all day), and by my 5th and last run, I had only fallen twice and was leafing (is that what it`s called?) back and forth across the slope at a fairly good pace, if I do say so myself. That`s not to say that I didn`t brilliantly wipe out, oh let`s just say more than you can count on one hand, but I just laughed it off. After years of (attempting) to play sports, what else can one do except to laugh at their own inability to stand on both feet?
I was SOO incredibly sore when 4 o`clock came around and a little woozy from bouncing my head off the snow like a basketball (read: earlier stated wipe outs), but I felt that we had indeed deserved to get us some curry from the Nepalese restaurant, which as usual was the right choice :) Naan=happiness, simple as that. The drive home to Sanpoku was an interesting time...not. I had to pull over twice due to nausea, and actually drove the speed limit for once cause my head hurt so much. By the time I got home everything was wobbly and I couldn`t stand. Exhausted I went to bed and didn`t move until my alarm went off the next morning. Rolling myself out of bed, cause my legs and arms had more or less abandoned me, I noticed that the nausea and wobbliness hadn`t gone away. So I rested all of Sunday, and didn`t eat anything. Come Monday I dragged my sorry ass into work and somehow managed to get through my three classes, though thank god two of them was just a reading test and I was able to sit the entire time. Noticing that I wasn`t able to speak as loud as I usually did without getting a headache and that the nausea and wobbliness was still there in full force, I admitted defeat and decided that it was now time to go to the hospital. The doctor suggested a Cat Scan, which thankfully showed that my brain was alright, but had done some damage to the part that controls balance and nausea and would probably be out of sorts for the rest of the week. Of course I would be the one to have a mild concussion. And here it is 4 days since the cause of it all and everything is still looking pretty wonky. :( The only good to come of this is the lack of appetite that had begun to sneak up on me again over the past month. Not going to lie, it felt nice not feeling the need to eat all 900 calories of the school lunch today just because there was rice still left in my bowl. Take that rice gods! Go fatten up someone else with your over-leaden carbs! I miss potatoes :(
So there, that`s my snowboarding misadventure. Equipment is beginning to go down to clearance prices lately, which begs the question, do I keep up with this whole winter sporting facade or should I just bow out now while the majority of my braincells are still intact.
Any thoughts on this, concussion?
And it`s official. I passed in my contract for another year here in the Niigata countryside a few hours ago. I was expecting to feel a heavy weight in the pit of my stomach, but thankfully all I felt was hunger and a lightness of knowing that yes, I do have a job for at least another year. I think this calls for a celebration, once this stupid ailment that has a good grip on me ever decides to screw off. I`ve been warned that most ALTs get sick in February, but mine has been ongoing since getting back from Christmas break, so anytime now, right?! haha
As usual my weekends have been spent doing musical rehearsal all over the prefecture. It`s really coming together now, which is great since our first performance is about a month away! Due to some scheduling conflicts and some of the other musical members` families coming to visit them (where are MY visits by the way?!?! I hope you`re detecting the bitterness. You know who you are!), the performances have been pushed back into May. Not exactly what I expected when I first got into this thing, but I`ve accepted it now. Plus, we`ve got some pretty great people in our group, so it`s just a nice excuse to see them for an extra two months longer than originally planned :) I would have to say that the part I`m doing, one of the near-blind Moon Police, that`s right, I get to play a ghetto police officer from the moon (you know you`re jealous) in which we break out into Thriller followed by an amazing J-Pop dance combo, is a pretty sweet part. Mostly me, Bryan and Nicole, the other two ALTs from Murakami, get to bumble around onstage the entire time. Should be a piece of cake! I call this everyday life. Really hope that it all comes together and can`t wait to get it started!
(Warning: All criticism in the following paragraphs shouldn`t be taken to heart; it`s just how I really felt at the time)
In an effort to add yet another sport? skill? activity? to my already full calendar, I allowed Bryan to talk me into trying snowboarding last weekend. Not that he really had to try too hard, I`ve been wanting to try it for a long time now, it was just the poor geography of Eastern Canada keeping me from actually doing it. So bright and early last Saturday morning we cruised down to Wakabuna Ski Resort, which is only a 30 minute drive south of Murakami city. I rented some gear and got to learning the basics.
Why oh why was I not blessed with any sort of grace or heaven forbid, balance?! After being hauled up to standing for the first half an hour and then left to my own devices while Bryan and Nicole took off up the lift ( no way in hell I was going up so soon!), one of Aaron`s Japanese friends took pity on me and tried to teach the poor stupid foreign girl how to stand on the board. Now, I try to take criticism constructively, I really do, but when I`m just learning something for the first time and obviously frustrated just back the hell off. I`m not exaggerating or being humble when I say that I`m really just not good at sports in general. This man didn`t understand this, and continued to `instruct` me for the next hour or so (`bend your knee, bend your knee`)..until I had successfully gotten down the mountain with all appendages intact and ran into Nicole, with whom I stuck like glue to for the rest of the day. I`m sorry that my long legs don`t bend as well as your short ones old Japanese man, and I`m sorry that no matter how many times I told you this fact (in Japanese) that you just didn`t get why I wasn`t already a snowboarding queen under your tutelage. After that I more or less had a great day. I fell fewer and fewer times (minus the time we decided to try the `other` trail...which wasn`t the best idea we had all day), and by my 5th and last run, I had only fallen twice and was leafing (is that what it`s called?) back and forth across the slope at a fairly good pace, if I do say so myself. That`s not to say that I didn`t brilliantly wipe out, oh let`s just say more than you can count on one hand, but I just laughed it off. After years of (attempting) to play sports, what else can one do except to laugh at their own inability to stand on both feet?
I was SOO incredibly sore when 4 o`clock came around and a little woozy from bouncing my head off the snow like a basketball (read: earlier stated wipe outs), but I felt that we had indeed deserved to get us some curry from the Nepalese restaurant, which as usual was the right choice :) Naan=happiness, simple as that. The drive home to Sanpoku was an interesting time...not. I had to pull over twice due to nausea, and actually drove the speed limit for once cause my head hurt so much. By the time I got home everything was wobbly and I couldn`t stand. Exhausted I went to bed and didn`t move until my alarm went off the next morning. Rolling myself out of bed, cause my legs and arms had more or less abandoned me, I noticed that the nausea and wobbliness hadn`t gone away. So I rested all of Sunday, and didn`t eat anything. Come Monday I dragged my sorry ass into work and somehow managed to get through my three classes, though thank god two of them was just a reading test and I was able to sit the entire time. Noticing that I wasn`t able to speak as loud as I usually did without getting a headache and that the nausea and wobbliness was still there in full force, I admitted defeat and decided that it was now time to go to the hospital. The doctor suggested a Cat Scan, which thankfully showed that my brain was alright, but had done some damage to the part that controls balance and nausea and would probably be out of sorts for the rest of the week. Of course I would be the one to have a mild concussion. And here it is 4 days since the cause of it all and everything is still looking pretty wonky. :( The only good to come of this is the lack of appetite that had begun to sneak up on me again over the past month. Not going to lie, it felt nice not feeling the need to eat all 900 calories of the school lunch today just because there was rice still left in my bowl. Take that rice gods! Go fatten up someone else with your over-leaden carbs! I miss potatoes :(
So there, that`s my snowboarding misadventure. Equipment is beginning to go down to clearance prices lately, which begs the question, do I keep up with this whole winter sporting facade or should I just bow out now while the majority of my braincells are still intact.
Any thoughts on this, concussion?
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Lately...
Things have been super freaking busy lately! and it's been very tempting to call in and take a 'sick day', but not only would that be severely frowned upon, I have also promised, almost begged myself to behave and work through whatever's being thrown at me until my oh-so-exciting-trip-to-Thailand on December 24th. Did I mention how excited I am to be going?! Well, times that by a million and you're getting there. Jessie and I are going to stay at an island beach resort for a few days, and hopefully get some of that elephant riding in there that I've been so looking forward to. hahaha! CAN'T WAIT!! :D :D But there's still 20 some odd days to get through first. Le sigh...
So yeah, things have been pretty busy here. Now that I've been roped into doing the charity musical ( really seriously enjoying it, I swear! The traveling around every second weekend is a bit tough though :/) there's most of my weekends tied up.
I was able to do a weekend home stay with a Japanese family two weeks ago, and had a great time. The family had lived in the US for about 6 years, so their English was pretty good. What threw me off was the complete lack of personal questions that most Japanese people ask me when we first meet. And therefore usually have some sort of witty remark ready, so I definitely wasn't expecting this! It was fun though. My host mom (now to be referred as Kazumi), and her two children (Kenchi and Yuina) picked me up at the Murakami train station and then preceded to Sekikawa to make mochi. The ironic part of the morning was that we both already knew the main people in charge! It was with the same group who I had done the traditional rice harvesting with in October, so we had a nice little reunion. Even better, the rice we used was the stuff I had picked! and was able to buy some of it after :) Food always tastes better when you've worked for it, don't you think?
For those of you going "what the heck is this mochi stuff?!" let me explain. Mochi is rice mixed with water and beaten the crap out of with a heavy wooden mallet until its a gooey, delicious mess, and then topped with more or less what ever you want. My favourite is adzuki, or red bean paste. After we all had our way with the mochi, it was lunch time, which meant 6 different kinds of homemade curries. It was delicious. Not enough words to describe it. Personally, I'm a big fan of Indian and Thai curries, but that day the Japanese had definitely pulled ahead a bit in my books (sure that Thailand will inevitably put itself on top again :P). We eventually made it back to their house (really nice, by the way) after enduring a 45 minute traffic jam on the highway :/ and played almost a million games of Uno with the kids. I had also brought flashcards showing different things in Canada that I used for my self-introduction at my schools, so I explained a bit about my lovely country. Even though they had lived in the States for several years, they weren't able to get up to visit.
Dinner was amazing! Oh how I've missed real home cooking! Needless to say I pigged out. God knows when the next one will be hahaha Not at my house, that's for sure. Then the next day, Kazumi took me to her pottery studio. I've always wanted to try pottery, and was floored when I found out that it was a hobby of hers. In fact, all of the dishes we used at the house were made by her! She's really good too. So she let me mess around for a few hours,and I scraped together something that resembles a bowl. Surprisingly it takes awhile to complete, probably not until the end of December she said, so she's going to finish it for me. I'd like to try it again though, and was invited back again anytime. By the end of the weekend I was completely exhausted. I've been 'lucky' enough to have a cold that's been constantly with me for over a month now, and unfortunately it was still in full swing during that weekend. The downside to working with young children I guess.
This past weekend Murakami hosted the musical practice, in which Bryan and Nicole readily lent out their apartments for people to stay the night. I had offered my place initially too and have the most space out of everyone, but the almost hour drive back and forth seemed like a little much. Apparently it was American Thanksgiving this past week, so we had rented out a local community centre to have a dinner party. I'm still a little bitter on the whole topic. Canadian Thanksgiving, which was in October, wasn't given a second thought to. Nicole and I were kind of upset, but then again, I believe we're only two of a very small population within the JET community here in Niigata; everyone else is either American or British. Then a bit of irony set in..Nicole and I ended up cooking the turkey, stuffing and all. Granted, we were in Murakami territory, but it was the stressing ordeal. (To those of you other musical people reading this, don't be offended, I just like to complain). There was a lot of excess running around to try and have the turkey both unthawed and cooked by the time the dinner started that night, and there was even location confusion where the place we thought we had booked for the evening wasn't the place we ended up being able to cook the turkey in, even though that was the REAL community centre we were led to believe we had booked and the one we had actually booked was called something else. Long story short, everything worked out. The turkey was excellent and the food everyone made was delicious. Then came the best part..nomihoudai! whoo whoo! (all you can drink)
Nicole, my Japanese friend Shigeko, and I went to see Harry Potter during the last holiday off. Best one by far! If anyone hasn't seen it yet I highly recommend it.
So yeah, things have been pretty busy here. Now that I've been roped into doing the charity musical ( really seriously enjoying it, I swear! The traveling around every second weekend is a bit tough though :/) there's most of my weekends tied up.
I was able to do a weekend home stay with a Japanese family two weeks ago, and had a great time. The family had lived in the US for about 6 years, so their English was pretty good. What threw me off was the complete lack of personal questions that most Japanese people ask me when we first meet. And therefore usually have some sort of witty remark ready, so I definitely wasn't expecting this! It was fun though. My host mom (now to be referred as Kazumi), and her two children (Kenchi and Yuina) picked me up at the Murakami train station and then preceded to Sekikawa to make mochi. The ironic part of the morning was that we both already knew the main people in charge! It was with the same group who I had done the traditional rice harvesting with in October, so we had a nice little reunion. Even better, the rice we used was the stuff I had picked! and was able to buy some of it after :) Food always tastes better when you've worked for it, don't you think?
For those of you going "what the heck is this mochi stuff?!" let me explain. Mochi is rice mixed with water and beaten the crap out of with a heavy wooden mallet until its a gooey, delicious mess, and then topped with more or less what ever you want. My favourite is adzuki, or red bean paste. After we all had our way with the mochi, it was lunch time, which meant 6 different kinds of homemade curries. It was delicious. Not enough words to describe it. Personally, I'm a big fan of Indian and Thai curries, but that day the Japanese had definitely pulled ahead a bit in my books (sure that Thailand will inevitably put itself on top again :P). We eventually made it back to their house (really nice, by the way) after enduring a 45 minute traffic jam on the highway :/ and played almost a million games of Uno with the kids. I had also brought flashcards showing different things in Canada that I used for my self-introduction at my schools, so I explained a bit about my lovely country. Even though they had lived in the States for several years, they weren't able to get up to visit.
Dinner was amazing! Oh how I've missed real home cooking! Needless to say I pigged out. God knows when the next one will be hahaha Not at my house, that's for sure. Then the next day, Kazumi took me to her pottery studio. I've always wanted to try pottery, and was floored when I found out that it was a hobby of hers. In fact, all of the dishes we used at the house were made by her! She's really good too. So she let me mess around for a few hours,and I scraped together something that resembles a bowl. Surprisingly it takes awhile to complete, probably not until the end of December she said, so she's going to finish it for me. I'd like to try it again though, and was invited back again anytime. By the end of the weekend I was completely exhausted. I've been 'lucky' enough to have a cold that's been constantly with me for over a month now, and unfortunately it was still in full swing during that weekend. The downside to working with young children I guess.
This past weekend Murakami hosted the musical practice, in which Bryan and Nicole readily lent out their apartments for people to stay the night. I had offered my place initially too and have the most space out of everyone, but the almost hour drive back and forth seemed like a little much. Apparently it was American Thanksgiving this past week, so we had rented out a local community centre to have a dinner party. I'm still a little bitter on the whole topic. Canadian Thanksgiving, which was in October, wasn't given a second thought to. Nicole and I were kind of upset, but then again, I believe we're only two of a very small population within the JET community here in Niigata; everyone else is either American or British. Then a bit of irony set in..Nicole and I ended up cooking the turkey, stuffing and all. Granted, we were in Murakami territory, but it was the stressing ordeal. (To those of you other musical people reading this, don't be offended, I just like to complain). There was a lot of excess running around to try and have the turkey both unthawed and cooked by the time the dinner started that night, and there was even location confusion where the place we thought we had booked for the evening wasn't the place we ended up being able to cook the turkey in, even though that was the REAL community centre we were led to believe we had booked and the one we had actually booked was called something else. Long story short, everything worked out. The turkey was excellent and the food everyone made was delicious. Then came the best part..nomihoudai! whoo whoo! (all you can drink)
Nicole, my Japanese friend Shigeko, and I went to see Harry Potter during the last holiday off. Best one by far! If anyone hasn't seen it yet I highly recommend it.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
A week in the life of...
Lately I've been able to speak to more and more people from home :) and have noticed that the conversations are following a similar pattern: What exactly am I getting up to over here? So today's entry will be dedicated to filling you all in on exactly what I'm 'getting up to', as I've so aptly named it (cue horrible British accent) "A Week in the life of.."
Due mostly to the disgusting humidity and hot weather, August was spent mostly indoors on my couch, eating my way through a plethora of delicious ice cream delights that Japan has been so kind to provide for me, and basking in the wonderfulness that is my air conditioner. Sadly this kept me from going out and meeting any of the locals..which I mostly alright with as the majority of them are older and would so 'smartly' veer towards me with their cars on one of my very rare outings on my bicycle (probably to just go to the grocery store for more ice cream ). Alas, I am sad to report that this veering continues; however I have my own car in which to scare them back to their own side of the road with. I see that I am rambling now...what I was trying to get at was since spending so much time inside and more or less alone, I, as much as I hate to admit it, was beginning to become a little homesick. So on a sweaty bike trip up to see my Supervisor to inquire about local sports teams and the like, I was happy to learn that on Wednesday nights there's a group that gets together to do both aerobics and Yosakoi (a type of up-beat traditional type dance that I've always wanted to try). And even better, it was already Wednesday. Score!
Fast forward 3 months and the involvement has peaked to an all time high. I'm seriously having to turn people down now due to all of the things I'm doing! Never thought it would've turned out like this! So without further ado, here is an example of my typical week:
Monday: Work at the Junior High School during the day from 8-4, learn Tea Ceremony from 7:30-9ish. (From an earlier blog you can see that I've only just started doing tea ceremony and am still up in the air about continuing with it as it absolutely KILLS my legs and the tea keeps me awake late at night :S But the free sweets are just so good!)
Tuesday: Work at the Southern Elementary School 8-4, run an Adult English Conversation Class from 7:30-9 (at first I really wasn't looking forward to doing this, but my 8 students are all very nice and like to give me advice on places to visit in the area, as well as bring me food...that pretty much won me over right there!)
Wednesday: Work again at the Junior High from 8-4, then attend aerobics from 7:30-8:30 and Yosakoi practice 8:30-9ish. Thankfully they're both in the same place...with mostly the same people. (I've been able to take part in 2 festivals so far with my Yosakoi group, with another one tomorrow afternoon actually. Plan on doing something specifically Yosakoi related in a later blog entry)
Thursday: Work at the Northern Elementary School 8-4, and go to "Mama-san Volleyball" from 7:30-9ish. When I was first invited to go, not going to lie, I was a little apprehensive since I'm completely horrible at sports or anything else that requires hand-eye coordination. Everyday life can be a danger in and of itself, but all that ice cream in August was catching up with me and thought that a little extra exercise wouldn't hurt me. That and the lady who invited me said that most of them were older ladies, so I didn't think that it would that intense. Man, I was wrong! They consistently kick my ass in everything we do, except for running laps during warm up (thank you god for gracing me with long giraffe legs! even though it sometimes makes shopping for jeans a pain in the ass). They endure my horrible clumsiness though, and to be fair, I DID warn them that I was complete crap at it in the beginning anyways. I think that I've maybe gotten a little better in the past few months..no one has openly asked me to stop coming anyways, and I take that as a good sign. My absolute favourite moment since starting happened a few weeks ago. They thought it was smart to put me up by the net to block and spike the ball, cause hey I'm a freaking giant who doesn't even have to jump to reach the top of the net. Well, the ball came my way and I rushed up to spike it (or something that resembled a spike anyways) when my right foot got tangled in my left and I literally tripped myself mid-air, flying a few good feet under the net into the other side of the court...and then burst out laughing, cause in this type of situation what else can you do but laugh?! Everyone else was worried that I was hurt, and for some strange reason still insist I stand up by the net. I believe that I am their comedic relief. hahaha
Friday: Work 9-11 at one of the two pre-schools in the area, then back to the Junior High till 4. Friday evenings are my 'free' night, though there was a time when I went to my Junior High Volleyball teams nightly practices, and then life got in the way and that stopped. I love love LOVE my two pre-schools! This may shock some people, as I've constantly disliked small children for the past few years, but Japanese children are just too precious! And they love me too!!! They literally scream when I walk through the door and throw their little bodies at me in a chorus of "Gina-sensei!" and "Good Morning"s. They make my day. I'm always in my best mood all week after spending two hours running after and being chased by little kids, who are so excited to hear what lessons I have planned for them, and can't wait to rhyme off what words they remember from the last time I was there. They make me want to have little half Japanese babies.
Weekends: Weekends are usually a toss up, spent with the other ALTs in Murakami, or like recently, performing with my Yosakoi group somewhere, or my least favourite of all, being spent at school :( In fact, I had spent the entire weekend working during Culture Festival. At that time I still hadn't had my breakthrough with the kids yet, so it wasn't pleasant.
This is my only free Saturday this month! And I spent it making soup (yum! Mom will be proud!) and watching You-Tube allllllll day while sprawled under the cozy loveliness that is my kotatsu (a type of heated coffee table). Even glanced at my Japanese lesson book that the JET Programme more or less makes everyone take. Probably the most Japanese I've studied since coming here this time.
Anyways, have to work next Saturday due to Parents Day, when the parents come and look into how well their kids are learning; then traveling to some random part of the prefecture for Musical Practice. Yes, that's right..musical practice. The JETs in Niigata Prefecture put on a charity musical every year and I wasn't going to do it since I'm so far away from everyone else, but they made up a special part for me, Nicole and Bryan, so I more or less have no option in this. Doing a home stay weekend with a local family the next weekend, and then Murakami is hosting the musical practice/having a Thanksgiving dinner the last weekend of Novemeber. Makes me sad that yet again things are based on the American Thanksgiving while Canada's was completely and utterly ignored (pfft!), but we're seriously outnumbered here anyways. Nicole once told me that there's a total of 4 Canadian JETs in all of the prefecture...and that's including us. Sadness.
This post is long. I'm done.
Due mostly to the disgusting humidity and hot weather, August was spent mostly indoors on my couch, eating my way through a plethora of delicious ice cream delights that Japan has been so kind to provide for me, and basking in the wonderfulness that is my air conditioner. Sadly this kept me from going out and meeting any of the locals..which I mostly alright with as the majority of them are older and would so 'smartly' veer towards me with their cars on one of my very rare outings on my bicycle (probably to just go to the grocery store for more ice cream ). Alas, I am sad to report that this veering continues; however I have my own car in which to scare them back to their own side of the road with. I see that I am rambling now...what I was trying to get at was since spending so much time inside and more or less alone, I, as much as I hate to admit it, was beginning to become a little homesick. So on a sweaty bike trip up to see my Supervisor to inquire about local sports teams and the like, I was happy to learn that on Wednesday nights there's a group that gets together to do both aerobics and Yosakoi (a type of up-beat traditional type dance that I've always wanted to try). And even better, it was already Wednesday. Score!
Fast forward 3 months and the involvement has peaked to an all time high. I'm seriously having to turn people down now due to all of the things I'm doing! Never thought it would've turned out like this! So without further ado, here is an example of my typical week:
Monday: Work at the Junior High School during the day from 8-4, learn Tea Ceremony from 7:30-9ish. (From an earlier blog you can see that I've only just started doing tea ceremony and am still up in the air about continuing with it as it absolutely KILLS my legs and the tea keeps me awake late at night :S But the free sweets are just so good!)
Tuesday: Work at the Southern Elementary School 8-4, run an Adult English Conversation Class from 7:30-9 (at first I really wasn't looking forward to doing this, but my 8 students are all very nice and like to give me advice on places to visit in the area, as well as bring me food...that pretty much won me over right there!)
Wednesday: Work again at the Junior High from 8-4, then attend aerobics from 7:30-8:30 and Yosakoi practice 8:30-9ish. Thankfully they're both in the same place...with mostly the same people. (I've been able to take part in 2 festivals so far with my Yosakoi group, with another one tomorrow afternoon actually. Plan on doing something specifically Yosakoi related in a later blog entry)
Thursday: Work at the Northern Elementary School 8-4, and go to "Mama-san Volleyball" from 7:30-9ish. When I was first invited to go, not going to lie, I was a little apprehensive since I'm completely horrible at sports or anything else that requires hand-eye coordination. Everyday life can be a danger in and of itself, but all that ice cream in August was catching up with me and thought that a little extra exercise wouldn't hurt me. That and the lady who invited me said that most of them were older ladies, so I didn't think that it would that intense. Man, I was wrong! They consistently kick my ass in everything we do, except for running laps during warm up (thank you god for gracing me with long giraffe legs! even though it sometimes makes shopping for jeans a pain in the ass). They endure my horrible clumsiness though, and to be fair, I DID warn them that I was complete crap at it in the beginning anyways. I think that I've maybe gotten a little better in the past few months..no one has openly asked me to stop coming anyways, and I take that as a good sign. My absolute favourite moment since starting happened a few weeks ago. They thought it was smart to put me up by the net to block and spike the ball, cause hey I'm a freaking giant who doesn't even have to jump to reach the top of the net. Well, the ball came my way and I rushed up to spike it (or something that resembled a spike anyways) when my right foot got tangled in my left and I literally tripped myself mid-air, flying a few good feet under the net into the other side of the court...and then burst out laughing, cause in this type of situation what else can you do but laugh?! Everyone else was worried that I was hurt, and for some strange reason still insist I stand up by the net. I believe that I am their comedic relief. hahaha
Friday: Work 9-11 at one of the two pre-schools in the area, then back to the Junior High till 4. Friday evenings are my 'free' night, though there was a time when I went to my Junior High Volleyball teams nightly practices, and then life got in the way and that stopped. I love love LOVE my two pre-schools! This may shock some people, as I've constantly disliked small children for the past few years, but Japanese children are just too precious! And they love me too!!! They literally scream when I walk through the door and throw their little bodies at me in a chorus of "Gina-sensei!" and "Good Morning"s. They make my day. I'm always in my best mood all week after spending two hours running after and being chased by little kids, who are so excited to hear what lessons I have planned for them, and can't wait to rhyme off what words they remember from the last time I was there. They make me want to have little half Japanese babies.
Weekends: Weekends are usually a toss up, spent with the other ALTs in Murakami, or like recently, performing with my Yosakoi group somewhere, or my least favourite of all, being spent at school :( In fact, I had spent the entire weekend working during Culture Festival. At that time I still hadn't had my breakthrough with the kids yet, so it wasn't pleasant.
This is my only free Saturday this month! And I spent it making soup (yum! Mom will be proud!) and watching You-Tube allllllll day while sprawled under the cozy loveliness that is my kotatsu (a type of heated coffee table). Even glanced at my Japanese lesson book that the JET Programme more or less makes everyone take. Probably the most Japanese I've studied since coming here this time.
Anyways, have to work next Saturday due to Parents Day, when the parents come and look into how well their kids are learning; then traveling to some random part of the prefecture for Musical Practice. Yes, that's right..musical practice. The JETs in Niigata Prefecture put on a charity musical every year and I wasn't going to do it since I'm so far away from everyone else, but they made up a special part for me, Nicole and Bryan, so I more or less have no option in this. Doing a home stay weekend with a local family the next weekend, and then Murakami is hosting the musical practice/having a Thanksgiving dinner the last weekend of Novemeber. Makes me sad that yet again things are based on the American Thanksgiving while Canada's was completely and utterly ignored (pfft!), but we're seriously outnumbered here anyways. Nicole once told me that there's a total of 4 Canadian JETs in all of the prefecture...and that's including us. Sadness.
This post is long. I'm done.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Making Progress
So today was probably the first time since I got here that I really felt like I was making some progress..with my junior highers! Gone (mostly) are the days where they wouldn`t even say konnichiwa to me when they walked by; some are even saying Hello to me first now! And they no longer run away from me! Am I really that scary?! hahaha Sure, I`m monsterously tall, but still.
But I really started to feel good about my being here this morning during a 3rd year class. As soon as I walked in a few of the guys were all like `Sensei, sensei..which is colder, Canada or Japan?`...an actual question! And of course I said Canada, but holy frig! I may start to rethink my answer if it continues being this freaking cold! Really wish I could get my heaters going at home...it was a very cold night last night.... Anyways, we continued to have a lovely half English conversation about how cold we all were. Later on during the class, the Japanese English Teacher asked me to walk around and ask questions using the day`s new grammar, and I was surprised that they all actually answered me in pretty flawless English. Wait...I`m not sure if I`m properly getting across how exciting this is to me. Until now when I tried this in any class the kids would just look around like they were in pain `What the heck is she saying to me?!` so needless to say I feel good that the kids are beginning to be more comfortable speaking to me in what English they do know.
Then, as usual before lunch, we were all milling around waiting for the food to be laid out, when a few of my 2nd year girls started asking me questions. Again, mostly focused on how cold it is, and why I was wearing a suit (I have no other warm clothing! My mom didn`t send my winter stuff to me until a few weeks ago, so there`s at least a few more weeks of suffering through the cold), but again! They spoke to me first! Usually I`m the one to ask them questions and try to get them to talk to me. Unfortunately I could never really make any progress with them, causing a crippling downward spiral of `Why don`t they like me? What the heck am I doing here?` that usually ends in a deep depression of staring blankly at my computer screen for the rest of the afternoon...or in tears in the bathroom. (This has only happened a twice, I swear!) Then in the lunch room some other 2nd years invited me to sit with them instead of my usual `Hey, can I sit here?` followed by frantic looking at each other to confer if I they should let me or not., which of course they would say yes cause it`s rude not too, but then I`d feel like I was encroaching for the rest of lunch. (Off topic: many of the older community ladies tell me I have a Japanese heart..not sure how I feel about this... :/ ) But what made me the happiest of all was the same 2nd years telling me that most of the students` favourite subject was English, and how sad they were that we didn`t have class this morning due to the other English teacher being sick.
Overall, a very good day with some definite progress. Nowhere to go but up now, right?!
But I really started to feel good about my being here this morning during a 3rd year class. As soon as I walked in a few of the guys were all like `Sensei, sensei..which is colder, Canada or Japan?`...an actual question! And of course I said Canada, but holy frig! I may start to rethink my answer if it continues being this freaking cold! Really wish I could get my heaters going at home...it was a very cold night last night.... Anyways, we continued to have a lovely half English conversation about how cold we all were. Later on during the class, the Japanese English Teacher asked me to walk around and ask questions using the day`s new grammar, and I was surprised that they all actually answered me in pretty flawless English. Wait...I`m not sure if I`m properly getting across how exciting this is to me. Until now when I tried this in any class the kids would just look around like they were in pain `What the heck is she saying to me?!` so needless to say I feel good that the kids are beginning to be more comfortable speaking to me in what English they do know.
Then, as usual before lunch, we were all milling around waiting for the food to be laid out, when a few of my 2nd year girls started asking me questions. Again, mostly focused on how cold it is, and why I was wearing a suit (I have no other warm clothing! My mom didn`t send my winter stuff to me until a few weeks ago, so there`s at least a few more weeks of suffering through the cold), but again! They spoke to me first! Usually I`m the one to ask them questions and try to get them to talk to me. Unfortunately I could never really make any progress with them, causing a crippling downward spiral of `Why don`t they like me? What the heck am I doing here?` that usually ends in a deep depression of staring blankly at my computer screen for the rest of the afternoon...or in tears in the bathroom. (This has only happened a twice, I swear!) Then in the lunch room some other 2nd years invited me to sit with them instead of my usual `Hey, can I sit here?` followed by frantic looking at each other to confer if I they should let me or not., which of course they would say yes cause it`s rude not too, but then I`d feel like I was encroaching for the rest of lunch. (Off topic: many of the older community ladies tell me I have a Japanese heart..not sure how I feel about this... :/ ) But what made me the happiest of all was the same 2nd years telling me that most of the students` favourite subject was English, and how sad they were that we didn`t have class this morning due to the other English teacher being sick.
Overall, a very good day with some definite progress. Nowhere to go but up now, right?!
Monday, October 25, 2010
Tea Ceremony? Sure, I'll give it a go...
So I was invited by a lady whom is also in my English conversation class, as well as Yosakoi group, to join her and a few older ladies in their Monday night Tea Ceremony practice. Shigeko and I arrived fashionably late at 7:30, where we were immediately rushed in to get started. There were about five other ladies there already, all dressed in beautiful kimonos and sitting in the seiza-style that all Japanese women can do so well.
Overall the experience was very enjoyable, minus the constant throbbing from my legs. No matter how I sat they just weren't happy :( Tried my best to sit seiza, but after ohhhh 2 minutes my legs would go numb and would end up sitting cross legged for the rest of session. It's okay, they said, cause I'm foreign hahaha Oh the things I get away with because of that! Everyone was so nice and complimented my Japanese pretty much the entire time, which can be a little tiring, but I know they mean well.
My favourite part was definitely the treats. We ended up going through three different styles of tea ceremony in the two hours we were there, and each time brought with it a new way of receiving and drinking the tea, which was a tad confusing. Trying to remember what we did during the previous time, and then they would tell me to forget that and just watch the women before me. But, more elaborate sweets! Lots of red bean and mochi, so needless to say I was over the moon~ :) Then at the end they gave me what was left and invited me to come back again next week. I don't know though...if I keep on like this then all my exercising and 'attempts' at eating healthier (which is already going extremely poor by the way) will all be wasted. Will power..where are you when I need you?! hahaha I haven't decided if I'll keep on with tea ceremony though, since I'm busy the rest of the week, but I haven't really done too much with it up until now, so why shouldn't I? Besides, if it means more free treats... :P Plus, there's also the chance of getting to wear a kimono, which is always fun. They were saying that by wearing one it changes the entire mood of the session, and they were right. I felt kind of out of place (nothing new there haha) in my normal clothing. Oh well, fingers crossed on that free kimono next week!
Overall the experience was very enjoyable, minus the constant throbbing from my legs. No matter how I sat they just weren't happy :( Tried my best to sit seiza, but after ohhhh 2 minutes my legs would go numb and would end up sitting cross legged for the rest of session. It's okay, they said, cause I'm foreign hahaha Oh the things I get away with because of that! Everyone was so nice and complimented my Japanese pretty much the entire time, which can be a little tiring, but I know they mean well.
My favourite part was definitely the treats. We ended up going through three different styles of tea ceremony in the two hours we were there, and each time brought with it a new way of receiving and drinking the tea, which was a tad confusing. Trying to remember what we did during the previous time, and then they would tell me to forget that and just watch the women before me. But, more elaborate sweets! Lots of red bean and mochi, so needless to say I was over the moon~ :) Then at the end they gave me what was left and invited me to come back again next week. I don't know though...if I keep on like this then all my exercising and 'attempts' at eating healthier (which is already going extremely poor by the way) will all be wasted. Will power..where are you when I need you?! hahaha I haven't decided if I'll keep on with tea ceremony though, since I'm busy the rest of the week, but I haven't really done too much with it up until now, so why shouldn't I? Besides, if it means more free treats... :P Plus, there's also the chance of getting to wear a kimono, which is always fun. They were saying that by wearing one it changes the entire mood of the session, and they were right. I felt kind of out of place (nothing new there haha) in my normal clothing. Oh well, fingers crossed on that free kimono next week!
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